The canoe fraudster and his wife enjoyed a break at the picturesque Batangas Bay Resort in the Philippines

The ex-prison officer now lives in the Philippines with second wife Mercy, who is 23 years his junior.

And to celebrate his 66th birthday the couple enjoyed a break at the picturesque Batangas Beach Resort, three hours from their home in the capital Manila.

The crystal clear sheltered waters are popular with divers and water sports enthusiasts are a far cry from the freezing North Sea near Hartlepool where his then wife Anne Darwin told cops and rescuers her husband had failed to return from a canoeing trip in 2002.

Darwin and Mercy posted snaps of the picturesque views from their hotel and one of them messing around for the camera on a public Google+ account.

A source revealed: “Life is pretty good for John at the moment. He’s got himself a younger wife and a nice little set up in Manila.

“They went away for this birthday and he enjoyed hiring canoes from the beach so he could have a paddle out for half an hour or so.

“But he doesn’t have any life insurance policies these days so there was no danger of him going missing!”

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Now Anne has released an £8.99 book called Out of My Depth in which she chronicles the crime and its aftermath.

It promises: “Anne opens up in her book Out Of My Depth, about an extraordinary chain of events: how she became involved in her husband’s hare-brained scheme; her life and marriage; her harrowing time behind bars and the runaway train of deceit and guilt that followed her plan to defraud insurance companies with the aid of a canoe.”

Volunteer lifeboat crews scoured the perilous North Sea looking for 'missing' John

Six RNLI lifeboats spent 85 hours scouring the treacherous North Sea in pointless searches for the missing canoeist.

They rushed into the water after the shattered remains of Darwin's red canoe were washed up in the Blue Lagoon in North East England in 2002.

The voluntary crews from four separate stations – Hartlepool, Redcar, Teesmouth and Staithes and Runswick – were launched on the day and to possible sightings in the following week.

An RNLI spokesman said: "Of course, as the majority of RNLI crews are volunteers, the real cost is the time they have to give up both when they are on a service and in training – and that's something which is impossible to quantify."

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